Affordability
Twin Cities area residents face extremely high housing costs compared to incomes for both owners and renters. In 2013, 12% of all area households, or one in eight, paid more than half of their income for housing. At this level of housing cost burden, families face difficult choices between paying for housing and other necessities such as transportation, food, and prescription medicines.
Over 91,000 renter households and 72,000 owner households now pay more than half of their income for housing in the Metro area. The burden falls especially heavily on lower-income area residents. Two-thirds of households earning less than $50,000 per year pay more than they can comfortably afford for housing, according to HUD guidelines, compared to 10% of households with incomes above $50,000.
Median Household Income (all), 2013: $67,194
Median Renter Household Income, 2013: $36,492
Technical information on these charts can be found here.
